The Tatami Time Machine Blues by Tomihiko Morimi

Author:Tomihiko Morimi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-11-07T00:00:00+00:00

It’s very strange, but the moment I saw me (from yesterday) give up on pursuing her, an intense anger surged within me: Why are you backing down now?!

If it were possible, I would have wanted to run over to yesterday-me, tap him on the shoulder, and tell him, Just keep following her. I (from yesterday) didn’t know that this strategic retreat was an irreparable failure. He was thinking, I’ll call it a day. He was thinking, There’s always tomorrow. But that tomorrow would never come.

“Huh?” Ozu murmured in concern. “Looks like you’re turning back.”

I (from yesterday) turned on my heel and trudged south.

As I was watching that pathetic me go, Ozu slipped out of a used bookstore tent.

He went to the center of the riding grounds and gazed south toward me (from yesterday) in disgust. Then he turned north to watch Akashi speed away. North, south, north again. His gaze flipped back and forth like a rattle drum. When he was about to hurry south, I barred his path.

“Wait, hold up. What are you trying to do?”

“You weren’t thinking ‘I’ll call it a day,’ were you?”

“This is the end,” I fairly spat, and his eyes went large.

“Hold on a second. You invited her to the Gozan Okuribi, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then who invited her?”

“How should I know?”

Ozu looked up at the golden sky and heaved a sigh. “I’m sure you were making excuses like ‘This is a strategic retreat’ and ‘There’s always tomorrow.’ And as a result, some random nobody beat you to it . . . You should be absolutely ashamed of yourself!”

“Hey, stop telling me what I need to hear.”

“You should be at least a little frustrated about this.”

“Doesn’t matter if I am or not at this point. There’s no way to fix it.”

“No, c’mon. There’s absolutely a way to fix it.”

Ozu twisted his lips into a smile. It was the exact expression of a villainous merchant in a period film handing a bribe over to the acting administrator—not the type of face that should be allowed in a sacred forest.

“Today you should just invite her on behalf of yesterday-you,” he said. “What else is a time machine for?”

“You lack a fundamental understanding of the issue. That sort of thing isn’t allowed!”

True, we were in possession of a time machine. But if the slightest alteration to the past could cause the universe to collapse, then what could we do? If my strategic retreat from the used book fair was in the past, then someone inviting Akashi was also in the past. Just like the Coke-soaked remote, they were both irreversible at this point.

In reality, a time machine isn’t good for anything. It’s too dangerous; you can’t use it even if you want to.

But even when I argued along those lines, Ozu just made a face like a horse reacting to a Buddhist prayer.

“So you’re giving up?”

“What choice do I have?”

“Fine. I get it.” He shoved me aside and walked south.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“If today-you is giving up, then I’ll go convince yesterday-you.

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